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Jonathan Gertner: FMMS Needs Shorter School Days

By Jonathan Gertner

Fort Morgan Middle School

Posted:
01/30/2014 11:38:51 AM MST

Jonathan Gertner FMMS

Editor's note: The following is a student selected, persuasive essay written by an eighth grader at Fort Morgan Middle School. Students in Mrs. Evans' literacy class were to write a persuasive essay on a topic of their choosing within the realm of Fort Morgan or Fort Morgan Middle School.

When you look at the school system of FMMS as of today, what is the biggest problem? When asked this question, for me, the answer was a no-brainer. The simple fact is that school days are just too long. More and more every day it's showing up in students' performance, both academically and athletically. The hard truth is that as I am drafting this, I am on the brink of falling asleep on my desk, and I'm sure many students are as well. It all really comes down to three things. First off, us students really don't have the time of the day to juggle the things of our busy lives. People can argue it's an issue of time management, but I can assure it is much bigger. Then, there's the horribly used time at school, combined with the FMMS students' short attention span, that finally made it apparent to me that it is time to change the length of the school day here at FMMS.

Firstly, I don't think anyone can deny that us students attending the middle school have a very busy and dynamic schedule. It would be unwise and arrogant to say we don't. Students are often too busy to get the recommended nine hours of sleep. The length of the days at school is not only affecting our students athletically, but academically as well. These students getting so little sleep face negative effects on two fronts because the lack is both so unhealthy for the mind and body of the teenage student. Some could argue that this is their own scheduling problem, and sleep caused exhaustion is their fault; I respond by saying shortening the day would solve this issue, even if it is due to scheduling. So when days are shortened, students and student athletes alike will be guaranteed needed sleep while still keeping their busy schedule.

Now to my next point, time currently managed at school is very horrible. The students and teachers often spend a lot of time idling and spending good class time with pointless activities. Once days will be shortened at FMMS, it will provide teachers more time to plan, and students more time to come prepared for class. This new and shorter schedule proposed will have students become more motivated to put forth more effort during their time at school. A downside to this of course, is that some students do need this extra time, and the change will be forcing teachers to go through unneeded stress. While this is a fair issue, the benefits do outweigh the negatives tremendously.

Another legitimate point I would like to touch on is that us students do tend to have a limited attention span to certain topics. When days become shorter, it will effectively force teachers to create more efficient lessons for their students. It is a well agreed topic that the shorter and powerful a lesson is, the more use it will be to a student here at FMMS. I, for one, have been a witness to how some of my peers of our school tend to tune out of lessons, often not even gaining anything out if it. And so once this necessary change of shorter days is made, the issue will be solved.

Many people try to argue whether this change is necessary for our school, but I hope that in conclusion I have helped you realize that this change has positives that crush the negatives nearly out of existence. The change is truly needed for our school to further advance for the upmost best of our students. But sadly, until the days are shortened, issues such as sleep deprivation from drawn out school days, wasted time due to inefficient lessons, and students' short focus span on said long inefficient lessons, we will not reap the benefits such as improved participation, readiness, alertness, and overall learning here at FMMS.

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